OREANDA-NEWS. June 06, 2011. China's chief economic planner will release a draft plan for the coal-chemical industry to garner public opinion.

The draft plan will limit the development of China's chemical industry in major coal-consuming provinces in China, such as Shandong and Henan. This is because overheated investment in the coal-chemical industry in recently years has led to overcapacity in the traditional coal-chemical sector.

Besides this, the draft plan will provide further details, corresponding to the regulations on access to the coal-chemical industry issued by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in March.

According to the announcement, NDRC will prohibit any coal methanol-to-olefin (coal-MTO) project with an annual capacity of no more than 500,000 metric tonnes; any coal-to-methanol project and coal derived DME projects with annual capacity of no more than 1 million tonnes; any coal-to-gas project with annual capacity of no more than 2 billion cubic meters; and any coal-to-ethanediol project with annual capacity of no more than 200,000 tonnes.

During 2006-2010, China has make progress with some demonstration coal-chemical projects. However, because it was confined by immature technology and inadequate resources, China would not develop its coal-chemical industry extensively, said Chen Shihai, an official with the National Energy Administration.